


Data Compression

by fathomlessspite



Series: A Good Old Normal, Human Life [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathomlessspite/pseuds/fathomlessspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master and John take a detour from saving their universes to pay Donna and Wilf a visit. The Master may have a little brainwave regarding Donna's condition and John isn't really feeling the 'share and share alike' philosophy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Data Compression

 

“What are you doing?” the Master asked as he watched John scurry around the controls of the Tardis.  They’d just blinked into existence in the parallel universe or rather John’s universe, when he had span in to action.  “Aren’t we supposed to be saving the universe and all that?” he asked when the Tardis’ engines fired up again.

“Just a slight detour,” John murmured in response.  The Master walked up to where John stood at the console and stopped just behind him.  He watched his breath rustle the hairs on the back of John’s neck for a moment before he stepped even closer and looked over John’s shoulder.  “Chiswick?”

They stopped with a jolt; the Master just caught himself hands braced against the console either side of John.

“We won’t be long,” John said, irritatingly unfazed by the Master’s proximity.

“Isn’t this where your friend lives, Diana? Dora?”

“Donna,” John huffed.

“Right,” the Master replied with a smirk.  John turned his head round to look at the Master with impatience.  The Master bit back a smile and glanced round the Tardis with an interested air.

“Well?” John said eventually. 

The Master turned back to him deliberately slowly.  “Oh, sorry.  Am I in your way?”  He took a step back and waved his arm for John to move.  John rolled his eyes and began toward the door, the Master followed him leisurely.

He watched as John threw the Tardis door opened and took a slight step back as the rain fell inside the Tardis doorway.  Determined set to his shoulders, John turned up his collar and stepped outside.  The Master rolled his eyes and rooted around for a moment under the central console.  With a hum of triumph he pulled out a large black umbrella and made his way to the door.

The Master carefully stretched his arm and the umbrella out in to the rain and opened it up before he stepped out underneath it and pulled the door shut behind him.

***

Wilf gaped at them, to be fair John did look rather ridiculous soaked to skin with rain as he was.  Ridiculous and, other things.

“Hello Wilfred, how are you?” John asked with a ridiculous grin, the Master could just tell even though John was standing in front him.

“Worried I might be losing my marbles!  You’re supposed to be dead!” he exclaimed.

“I am?” John asked.  “Well be that as it may...” he trailed off.  Wilf stared at him wide-eyed.  The Master sighed and finally lifted the umbrella over John’s head and smiled disarmingly at Wilf.

“Perhaps we could come inside and he can explain it all to you,” he said and rested a hand on John’s soggy shoulder.

“You!” Wilf said angrily upon glancing at the Master’s face.  He seemed torn between taking a step back in retreat or forward to attack.

“You know him?” John asked.

“He shouldn’t?” the Master asked with disinterest as he glanced down at his fingernails.

“I suppose since I left something could have...” he trailed off.  “You’re dead here though,” he said after a pause. 

The Master stepped forward and pressed his should against John’s.  “Perhaps we can come inside and explain?” he repeated.

“I-”

“He’s harmless Wilf, I promise,” John said with a smile.  The Master snorted but otherwise remained quiet.

“I s’pose you’d better come in then,” Wilf said and finally let them inside the house.

***

The Master headed straight for the kettle when Wilf led them to the kitchen, Wilf and John sat down at the dining table.  The Master rooted around the cupboards for a mug and tea whilst Wilf explained to John what the Doctor had done to Donna’s memories.

“Typical,” he tutted when Wilf finished and felt John’s glare hot on his back.  He shared his victorious grin with the kettle.

“Did the Doctor explain exactly what happened when Donna got all that information downloaded into her head?” John asked.

“Meta-something,” Wilf responded as the Master found a spoon and dropped it into his mug with a clatter of metal against china.

“Meta-crisis, and the information in her mind wasn’t the only side effect,” the Doctor continued.  “I was the other.”

The Master finally turned round, having added milk and water to his mug and removed the tea bag.  He leant against the counter and blew on the tea as he observed Wilf’s reaction.

“You?”

“Yep, a human time lord.  A little bit of Donna and the Doctor mixed together,” he smiled again.  He smiled at Wilf far too much the Master decided; he needed to reserve some of those smiles for himself.  After all he’d already cornered the market on annoyed glances, he had to move on to _something_ else.

“So you’re not him then?  He really did die?” Wilf asked a note of disappointment in his voice.

“I don’t know, he might’ve regenerated,” John replied.

“Oh he did, but he said it felt like dying.”

“That can be true I suppose, I’ve never really thought of it like that before.  I don’t really need to think about it now either,” he looked down at the table top.

Sensing it was time to stop the pity party, the Master set his tea down on the table.  “Are we done then?”

“No!” John objected.  “How’s Donna?” he asked.  “How do you know the Master?” he added.  The Master listened with disinterest about the stories of Donna Noble’s rather mundane existence and paid slightly more attention to the tales of his alternate’s exploits.  As Wilf described the events a rather to clear image flashed in his mind's eye.  They really needed to get on with saving the universe, that was getting annoying.

“Huh,” John commented when Wilf finished.

“What?” the Master found himself asking with curiosity.

“At least he was,” he paused.  “At least you were there near the end.”

“He was mad!” The Master objected.

“In this Universe, the Master was always mad.  It didn’t mean I felt any differently, it was just more difficult.  I always thought of him as my friend; and you aren’t so different, not really.”

The Master didn’t know what to object to first; the fact that he was apparently easier to deal with than his alternate (despite his best efforts thus far to drive John up the wall) or that he was apparently startlingly similar to a man who had been driven mad by the constant noise of drumming inside his skull.

Wilf beat him to it.

“You said he isn’t evil!”

“He’s helping to save both our universes.  So he’s not evil, not really.  Just a little power hungry and self absorbed,” he added with a pointed look at the Master’s mug of tea.

“I can be evil if I want,” the Master responded indignantly, and took an extra large sip of tea before he set the mug down on the table and slid into a seat next to John.

“And apparently you can’t live without me in any universe, evil, insane or otherwise,” he commented and ran his foot up John’s leg.  John twitched but didn’t response.  “Anyway,” the Master continued, landing a hand on John’s thigh.  “You’re the one who sidetracked us on our very important universe saving mission to come and visit your best friend,” he sneered a little and glared at a photo of Donna sitting on a shelf over Wilf’s shoulder.  “Who’s self absorbed now?”

John couldn’t seem to put an appropriate response into words and settled upon glaring at the Master.  He grinned in response and gave John’s thigh a last squeeze before letting go to take another sip of tea.

“You can’t see Donna!” Wilf objected.

“We know, her mind would burn.  I just wanted-”

“Actually,” the Master interrupted.  “I’ve had an idea about that.”

“What kind of idea?” John asked with a frown.

“Basically you’ve got a data storage problem right?  And hardware that’s not quite up to scratch.  You need to wipe her memories and make her completely human again,” he continued.  “Although it might be useful if she could remember who she is, so we want to erase specific memories and retain others.  We just happen to have a device that can do just that on my Tardis, don’t we John?”

“The chameleon arch,” John smiled in response.  “It’s designed for timelords though.”

“We can scan her; modify it as we need to.”

“But they’re designed to create false memories, new memories.”

“Mine obviously wasn’t, we can study it and figure out how to make it work for your friend.”

“You’d do that for her?” Wilf asked quietly, like he couldn’t quite believe that the Master would help out a complete stranger.  He was right.

 “No,” the Master answered.  “I’d do it for him though.”   John’s grin was blinding. 

***

“This is ridiculous,” the Master huffed out.  Chest compressed by the weight of John who had just fallen through Donna Noble’s open bedroom window and on top of him.

“She can’t see me can she,” John whispered in return, his breath ghosted over the Masters face who grinned at their proximity.  He swept his hand over John’s waist to rest on his lower back and waggled his eyebrows.  John glanced down at his mouth momentarily before he rolled his eyes and stood slowly up.

Only to drop back down again instantly upon seeing Donna’s eyes flicker open.

“Who the hell are you?!” she demanded of the Master, now stood by her bed.

“No one,” the Master replied nonchalantly and pulled out a small scanning device.

“And what the hell is that?” she shouted as she sat up in the bed.

“This?” the Master looked down at the scanner.  “You’re right that is strange.  Very odd dream you’re having Donna.”

“I’m dreaming?” she asked.  She sounded a little unsure if still indignant.

“I should imagine so, how likely is it that a strange man would break into your bedroom and wave a little flashing box at you?” he asked.  The scanner beeped as it finished taking readings of Donna.  “A little flashing, beeping box,” he added with a grin.

“What is it then?” she asked.

“I don’t know do I?  It’s your dream!” the Master protested and moved over to stand on the opposite side of the bed by the door.  She turned to face him, with her back now to the window John was able to crawl back out of it.

He picked up a candle from a shelf and made a show of inspecting it.  “Well I best be going,” he said once enough time had passed for John to be out of sight.

“That’s it?”

“Really Donna, it’s your dream.  I don’t think it’s fair for you to keep directing these complaints at me,” he admonished as he walked back over to the window.  He grimaced as he glanced out, but began to climb out anyway.  John had done it after all.

“Wait!” Donna protested; she began to climb out of bed.  The Master rolled his eyes and walked back over to her.  He quickly placed his hand at her temples before she could shrug him off.

“Go to sleep Donna,” he intoned, verbally and in their minds.

“Hey-” she protested before she slumped sideways on the bed and fell asleep.

***

Mostly, configuring the Chameleon Arch for Donna involved a lot of sitting around, chatting, drinking tea and watching telly.  On John and Wilf’s part anyway.

The Master as the brains of the operation he had to put in the hard work.  Honestly, he’d finished a while ago but he was taking the extra time to run a few scans of his own.  And to do a bit of mental sheltering.

If the only Time Lord in existence in this Universe was the Doctor then it would only take a tinee-tiny mental reach for him to notice the Master’s presence.  And if he was no longer the incarnation that resulted in John he might be decisively less friendly.

He glanced over at the modified Chameleon Arch and fleetingly wondered if he should have used it on himself first, made him untraceable.

There was a knock on the Tardis door before it opened ad John stuck his head in, “Do you want something to eat?” he called.

“All done,” the Master jumped down from his perch and strolled over to John.

“Really?” he grinned.

“Really.  Perhaps we should invite Donna over for tea?”

*** 

“Hey Gramps,” John and the Master overheard Donna great Wilf from where they sat in the kitchen.  “What was so urgent?”

“Just got some guests who wanted to meet ya’ love,” he replied.

“Yeah?” she asked as she came into the kitchen, Wilf at her heels.  John stood up so quickly the chair would have toppled had the Master not caught it.

“Hi Donna.”

“Who’re you then?” she asked frowning at him.  Her eyes flickered with recognition when she glanced at the Master.  “Hey, you’re-”

John stepped forward, “I’m John Smith.  We’ve actually met before but you might not remember.”

“Come on, let’s take her to the Tardis,” the Master stood and started walking out of the kitchen.

“The what?”

“Come on love,” Wilf encouraged and she grudgingly followed John and the Master outside.

“When’d they put this here?” she asked when they stopped by the Tardis.

“Pretty recently,” John commented.  “Want to have a look inside?”

“Erm, not really?” she said and glanced between the three men.

“Go on Donna, give it a look,” Wilf said and gave her a little push in the direction of the door which the Master now held open.

“If it’ll shut you up, but you’re all a complete bunch of...” she trailed off once she had stepped fully inside the Tardis.  “..nutters,” she finished as John and the Master bustled in and past her.  Wilf shut the door quietly and stood patiently beside her.

The Master watched them from where he was pulling the chameleon arch machine down into position over a chair.  He pulled a cable out from the main control hub and connected it to the machine.

“It’s- What the hell is it?” Donna demanded.

“It’s a space ship,” John said with a grin.  He was literally bouncing on his toes with excitement; the Master rolled his eyes.

“And what you’re some kind of skinny weird looking martian?” she demanded.

“Oi!”

“No wait,” the Master looked up at her abrupt change in tone.  She had a distracted look on her face as she continued.  “Not from Mars are you spaceman?” she said faintly before her legs buckled and she groaned, “My head.”

“Donna, do you remember?” John asked.

“Doctor,” she ground out.

“Not exactly.”

“He’s yours and the Doctors bastard love child,” the Master put in.

“What?” she glanced up at him eyes wide and glassy with pain.  “Oh sod that, what have you gone and done you morons?!  My brain is going to flipping explode!”

“We have a plan, do you trust me?” John asked her as he and Wilf helped her stand and walk over to the chair.

“No!” she exclaimed as she dropped heavily into it.

“Smart girl,” the Master murmured as he attached the machine to her head.

“What,” she gasped and squeezed her eyes shut in pain, “What are you doing, what is this thing?”

“Don’t worry, he didn’t lay a hand on it,” the Master reassured her as he attached the watch to the machine.

“That doesn’t make me feel better; I have his knowledge, his memories.  I know exactly who you are,” she breathed, voice shaky.

“He’s not the same man, he wouldn’t hurt you,” John said and looked unblinkingly into her eyes.

“Why?” she asked.

“For me, I think,” he said with a small smile.

“Okay,” she said after a few moments.  “Get on with it then.”

The Master turned the chameleon arch on and Donna screamed.

*** 

“Everything seems to be fine,” the Master told him as he removed his hands from Donna’s temples.  “All quiet.”

John looked down at her where she lay on the sofa, still unconscious but as far as the Master could tell completely unharmed.

“Maybe we should go, before she wakes up,” John said quietly.

“What?” the Master frowned.  Wasn’t the whole point of this for John to get his friend back?

“You can’t!” Wilf protested.  “You can’t just give her memories back and then run off again.”

John ran a hand through his hand, glanced back down at Donna then bolted from the room.  Wilf blinked in confusion at John’s hasty exit.

The Master found John in the kitchen, hands braced on the counter top, chin rested on his chest.  There were times when one could tease, or could say something to improve a situation.  There were times when one had no idea what the problem and whatever was said would likely be of no help whatsoever.

Intelligent man that he was, the Master recognised this situation as one of the later.  He wandered over to stand behind John, not touching but close enough that they would be with a particularly large inhalation.

John sagged against him, the Master hooked his chin over John’s shoulder and snaked an arm round his waist.  “What if she wants to come with us?” John said quietly.  “I’ve only just- We’re only just getting started, I don’t want to...” he trailed off.  The Master grinned into John’s neck.  _Share_.  He didn’t want to _share_.

“Turn round,” he murmured.  He needed to do something to prevent the oncoming warm fuzzy feeling that he was sure was about to overwhelm him.  Before John had fully turned the Master’s mouth was on John’s, he closed his eyes against John’s open and honest.  This wasn’t teasing it was warm and unyielding and almost like something he remembered from lifetimes ago.

Trust the universe to choose an incarnation of the Doctor to throw at him who looked so much like his first.  Same brown eyes, same irresistible grin.  The Master pushed John harder against the counter.  John groaned his single heartbeat pounded in his chest and against the Master’s.

He wasn’t the same, human for one.  Different universe, different history.  He wasn’t the Doctor but he was important, the Master could feel it.  He was, “John,” he groaned and broke the kiss.  “You should go and talk to Donna before we go.”

John extricated himself and walked back to the lounge.  The Master resumed John’s previous stance for a moment and used the counter to hold him up.

Donna had evidently woken as he heard John say calmly, “You can’t come with us.”  The Master walked back to the lounge and watched from the doorway as Donna sat up fully and indignant.

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Because it’s my Tardis and I said so,” the Master told her.  John glanced at him gratefully before turning back to Donna.

“We’ll visit, promise,” he smiled at her.

“You better,” she grumbled.

The Master frowned as he felt a tickle of awareness at the back of his mind, “We need to go,” he said.

“Why?” John asked.  The Master clenched his fists, he should have spent longer hiding himself, this was not good.  “What’s wrong?” he was right up in the Master’s space now.

“We need to go,” he repeated.

“You haven’t even explained what you’re doing with him in the first place!” Donna protested.

The Master gripped John’s wrist and dragged him down the hall and to the front door.  He flung it open over Donna’s and now Wilf and John’s protests to come face to face with a tall dark haired man on the other side.  He was wearing a navy Earth military coat and his hand which had been raised to knock, quickly pulled a weapon from within the coat and aimed it at the Master’s head.

The Master winced at the sight of him, God he was... _wrong_.

“Jack?” he heard John ask from behind him.

“Out,” Jack grunted and gestured with the gun for them to step outside.  “Let go of him,” he said with a glance down to where the Master’s fingers were still wrapped loosely round John’s wrist.

“Jack, what’s going on?” a woman jogged up to the house from a familiar looking range rover.

“Martha,” John breathed beside him.

Her eyes widened at the sight of John, “Doctor?”

“Guess again,” Donna said and stepped out of the house.

“We really need to go,” the Master ground out without looking away from the weapon still pointed at his head.

“If you’d just tell me what...” John trailed off as the familiar sound of Tardis engines echoed through the air.  The Master looked at his Tardis which was stationary and inactive. 

Beside it a familiar looking blue box was flickering into existence.

 **END**


End file.
